Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Mozilla & Google behind the scenes payola

[Antoine <melser.anton@gmail.com>]

Michael Kintzios wrote:
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Holly Bostick [mailto:motub@planet.nl] 
>>Sent: 11 August 2005 01:32
>>To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
>>Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Mozilla & Google behind the 
>>scenes payola
>>
>>
> 
> [snip]
> 
>>And if my theory holds water in any way, then the Mozilla Foundation
>>really would have had no choice but to spin off a for-profit
>>subsidiary... after all, if the money is rolling in (via perfectly
>>legitimate and socially acceptable means), it has to go somewhere, and
>>it can't go to the N-F-P foundation beyond a certain level.
> 
> 
> An accountant could probably advise better, but I would think that there
> are appropriate vehicles (e.g. NfP trusts) which would allow financial
> profits that cannot be expensed in activities supporting the Moz
> Organisation objectives within the financial year, to be stored and in
> turn invested thereafter both in for profit and not schemes so that they
> may grow and prosper.  Making an economic profit is not a problem in
> itself.  Compromising Moz.Org./OSS objectives in seeking to derive this
> profit creates a conflict of interest and therefore it becomes a
> problem.  Of course this may not be the case with the FF/Google
> syndication, I don't really know.

Is this right? AFAIK, non-profits don't actually make "profits" at all,
they have surpluses. The surpluses can't be redistributed as such
(though of course a non-profit could give money away, though would
probably need justification) but they are surpluses that in theory
"should be" reinvested/spent.
I really don't see any reason whatsoever for spinning off a company for
these reasons. In any case, if the company remains wholly owned by the
mozilla foundation then the problem won't go away - if the foundation
decides to withdraw capital it will still be "surplus". I guess the
company could then be sold but I can't see how it would differ from any
other company that is paid to be the guider of an OSS project...
I may be wrong about my assumptions but would be interested to know if
that is wrong...
Cheers
Antoine
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